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GUESTS: Cynthia Valenzuela, litigation director for MALDEF, The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Phillip Hwang, staff attorney for Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights

Last Monday, as hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Los Angeles for immigrant rights, day laborers in Redondo Beach claimed a victory in federal court. U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall of Los Angeles ruled that the city’s ordinance banning the solicitation of work from public sidewalks violates freedom of speech. She cited inadequate alternative spaces where day laborers could solicit work in ruling the ban unconstitutional. Before the ruling, more than sixty day laborers were arrested in Redondo Beach in 2004.